Five Things That Never Happened
by Simone Landon
Summary: Five alternate universe ficlets. Things that never happened to Kaiba, Yuugi, Honda, Bakura, or the Ishtars -- but that could have.


Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

The result of a little-known LiveJournal meme, which was originally an email-list meme. Lord knows what its origins were before that.

Instructions: _I've always been fond of the five things concept, but it's occurred to me lately that not everyone who runs outside of Buffy and other western hemisphere pop fandom circles knows of it. Basically, therefore, it consists of writing five scenes that are a departure from canon, either drastically or more subtly. They can be interconnected, or they can not be. The whole point is just to come up with five separate possibilities._  
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I.  Cousins

Kaiba Seto was a living contradiction.

A sixteen-year-old, who was CEO of his own company.  A sophomore, who owned a good fifth of the land of downtown Domino and who regularly engaged in political wars with other millionaires. 

A genius, who paid so little attention in his classes that he was close to failing half of them.  He was fluent in four languages and barely passing Japanese, correcting the Economics teacher at least once a week and being tutored in Social Studies (theoretically, since he had yet to set aside a time to **be** tutored, much to Junji's relief).

A designer of multi-player games, with the personality of a cactus.  A really prickly one.

A teenager constantly looking for newer, more exciting and challenging games, because he never lost.  Ever.  Some people said he cheated.  Others said that he turned into a different person when playing.  The first people usually told the others to shut up and stop being so delusional.

Kaiba Seto was a living contradiction.  But it was okay -- his classmates were used to it.

So they didn't see anything odd in the fact that the stern, cold teenager constantly wore a heavy gold puzzle around his neck, even with his business suits.  
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II.  Parasite and Host

The new transfer student's name was Bakura Ryō.  The first thing the class noticed about him was the scar on his left cheek.  The second and third things they noticed were his short, ragged-edged hair and the casual arrogance he held himself with.

When he took a seat next to Jounouchi, the blond sized him up.  Bakura only smiled and exchanged the usual pleasantries, and eventually Jounouchi decided he was over-reacting and introduced the other teenager to his friends.

"Yuugi?" Bakura repeated when Yuugi introduced himself, tilting his head.  "Does that mean you like games?"

Yuugi nodded vigorously.  "Yeah!  Do you, Bakura-kun?"

Bakura grinned.  "Yeah!" he replied.  "Especially role-playing games.  My favorite is one called 'Monster World!'"

"Ah, I've heard about that one," Yuugi nodded. When Jounouchi asked what it was, Yuugi explained, and Bakura wound up complimenting him on his knowledge.

"That sounds cool!" Jounouchi exclaimed.  "If it's okay, can we play Monster World tomorrow, Bakura?"

Bakura's grin widened slightly.  "Sure!"

"All right!"

Bakura turned to look at Yuugi, his expression now toned down to a smile.  "Other than that, there's something that's been intriguing me for a while now . . . Yuugi, that pendant. . . ."

Yuugi touched the puzzle.  "Oh, this?  It's the Millennium Puzzle.  It was found in an old pharaoh's tomb."

"That's really neat," Bakura said.  "You see. . . ."  He undid the top buttons of his uniform and pulled out an ornate Ring.  "I have one similar to it.  My father got this at a bazaar in Egypt."

"Wow," Honda said, leaning in for a closer look.  "They **do** look a lot alike."

"Weird!" Anzu commented.

Yuugi looked from the Ring to Bakura's wide grin, and began to feel uneasy.  
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III.  The Other Son

The engraving ceremony had been extremely painful -- even more so than it usually would have been, since Lord Ishtar was displeased with the way events had turned out.  It was a move bordering on suicidal to put a knife in the man's hands when he was that enraged, but there was nothing to be done -- it was his tenth birthday, and that was the way things went.  Rishid clenched his teeth around the bit and tried not to cry out.

Lady Ishtar bandaged him afterward.  She had a dark bruise on her cheek.

Rishid stayed in his room most of the week in order to avoid Lord Ishtar, and to let his back heal.  Lady Ishtar brought him his meals.  Little Isis spent her time hiding in the farthest corridors of the complex.

Eleven months later, Lady Ishtar died giving birth.

Lord Ishtar never forgave Malik for being born a year too late.  The fact that he had killed his wife in the process only added to the sin.

Rishid had spent the first ten years of his life being treated with negligent disdain -- and that didn't change much as the years went by -- but Malik was actively hated.  Isis and Rishid did what they could to make his life more bearable, but so long as Lord Ishtar was the patriarch, they could only risk so much . . . and those little gestures of kindness were, ultimately, never enough.  

It didn't help that Malik refused to make things easier on himself.  He **was** his father's son, after all, and it could been seen in nearly everything about him, from the color of his hair to his inability to be subservient.  He inevitably rebelled against the menial and degrading circumstances of his life, and he was inevitably punished for it.

As she always did after those times, Isis crept into Malik's room at night, to disinfect the lashes on his back and to dress them.  She would return early in the morning to remove the bandages so that Lord Ishtar would not know.  Rishid would stand guard in the hallway.

This time the wounds had been particularly bad, because Malik had the mistake of calling Lord Ishtar "Father" during their most recent yelling match.  He could hear Isis whispering soothingly to her brother as she daubed the salve onto his wounds, and in the faint flickering of her lamp, Rishid could see the way Malik shook and clenched his hands into fists.

"He should die!" the boy burst out suddenly, making both Rishid and Isis start.  Malik hit a fist against the stone of his bed.  "He should **die**!  He should--"

Isis clamped a hand over his mouth.  "Malik!" she whispered harshly.  "The halls echo!"

Malik was still shaking, but he quieted.  A moment later Isis pulled her hand away and gently brushed her brother's hair back from his face, before returning to his wounds.

Soon she had finished applying the salve to them, and she helped Malik sit up so that she could start wrapping the bandages.  That was when Rishid heard the footsteps.

"Isis!" he hissed, stepping inside the room.  She bit her lip and moved to take the lamp, but Malik grabbed her wrist.

"Sister . . ." he pleaded, and Rishid's stomach twisted at the fear in the boy's voice.  It wasn't misplaced.

Isis looked at her brother for a moment, before turning her head to Rishid.  "He'll see the medicine," she said.  "I might as well stay.  You should go while you can."

He hesitated a moment, but Isis made a hurried motion and the steps were getting closer, so he left.  He didn't need a lamp to trace his way back, even though he took a circular route through the corridors so that he wouldn't run into Lord Ishtar.  He was a third of the distance to his room when he heard the beginning of Isis and her father's argument via the echoes.

Rishid paused in the hallway for several heartbeats, hesitating, but eventually he continued back to his room.

How could he bring himself to rebel against this life?  This was the only family he'd ever had . . . and he had been lucky to get even it.

Rishid brought breakfast to both Malik and Isis the next morning.  Isis had undone one of the gold ornaments in her hair so that she could partially cover her face.  Malik had lost a tooth.

Two weeks later, Malik ran away in the middle of the night.  Out of childish spite or something else, he took the Sennen Rod with him.  With that discovery, Lord Ishtar broke the Gravekeepers' ancient rule and went outside to hunt him down.  The man came back that evening, with the Sennen Rod.  He didn't come back with Malik.

Isis broke down and cried herself to sleep that night.  Rishid stayed with her.  
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IV.  Kuru Eruna

They found the boy hiding on the roof of one of the houses.  He'd laid himself on his stomach in the center so to be as unnoticeable as possible, but as the sun sank the shadows gave him away.

The boy had a knife, and he stabbed one of the soldiers in the side before two more threw him off the roof.  He survived the fall with a broken leg and wrist, as well as what would become several bad bruises.  The latter didn't seem likely to occur, though, since barely a moment had passed before one of the soldiers on the ground lifted his sword to cut the boy's throat.

"Stop it," said a man behind the soldier, and the sword froze a few feet above its target.  The boy opened his eyes.  "Can't you see he's a child?"

"There were other children," the soldier replied, and the man flinched.  "He's a grave thief's bastard, sir.  He won't come to any good.  This is the best for the kingdom and the kings in the afterlife."

The man looked down, and even though the boy was wavering in and out of consciousness, he managed to memorize his face.  ". . . We only need ninety-nine," the man said finally.  "Tie him up; we'll take him back with us."

The soldier's face blatantly showed that he didn't like this plan, but he only bowed and said, "Yes, Priest Akunadin."

They bound the boy at the elbows and ankles despite his injuries, and he passed out before they could carry him back to the horses.

Eight days later, once the battle had been taken care of, Akunadin visited the room in the palace hospital where the boy had been taken.  He was told that the child was recovering fairly well from his injuries, and that he ate anything they gave him, but he refused to speak.

Akunadin looked into the cell-like room where he was being kept, and the boy had no sooner spotted him then his gaze fixed on the man's Eye and stayed there.  Akunadin had just come from witnessing his son's own reaction to the Eye, so the fact that this child didn't cower away almost lightened his heart.

Almost.  "What is your name?" he asked.

The boy didn't answer, and Akunadin frowned.  He was not yet comfortable with using the power of the Sennen Eye, but the Item would often pick up others' stray thoughts without his effort.

". . . Your name is Bakura, isn't it?"

The boy's gaze widened at that, and for a brief second he glanced away from Akunadin's Eye to his eye.  But it was only for a second, then Bakura struggled onto his feet and began limping towards him.  The grimace that twisted across his face showed that, yes, that leg was still very much broken.

Akunadin was impressed to see such will in someone so young, and he bent down slightly as Bakura approached him.  "That's enough -- you're injured."  He paused, and then asked carefully, "Do you remember how you got here?"

Bakura stared at him blankly for a long moment.  Then his hand curled up and he lunged at the bars, shoving his arm through them in an attempt to claw out the Eye.  Akunadin jerked away reflexively, and the guard that had been standing with him slammed the handle of his spear down on Bakura's wrist.  The boy cried out and fell backwards, and when the guard jabbed the spear through the bars he scrambled away, whimpering at the pain the movement caused.

Akunadin straightened and took a step back, and Bakura looked up at him again.  The man had to repress a shudder at the amount of hatred carved on the child's face.

He stared at the boy for several more seconds, and then he turned and began to walk away.

"Sir?" the guard asked hesitantly.  "What did you want us to do with him?"

Akunadin paused in the hallway.  He lifted a hand half-way to his face before catching himself and forcing it back down.  ". . . Kill him.  But don't make it public," he added.  "And make it quick."

Akunadin walked rapidly down the hall, trying to leave the building as quickly as possible; but he couldn't get away from Bakura's thoughts.  They echoed through his head, the rage and sorrow in the words as sharp as if it were his own.

_I'll make you pay for them. I won't forget.  I'll never ever forget_.

. . . _Not even if you kill me_.  
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V.  Wind

Honda Hiroto used to race motorcycles.

At first no one cared, because almost no one knew.  Then he and Jounouchi met Yuugi, and he stopped.  Then Otogi began to openly court Shizuka, and Honda started racing again so that he would have enough money to compete with the other teenager.  Then, somehow, Shizuka found out, and he quit again to make her happy.  He stayed away from racing for almost half a year, until he did something rather stupid and wound up needing a high sum of cash very fast.

After the third time, Honda just didn't bother to tell anyone what his new job was or why it seemed to have such great and flexible hours.

Jounouchi eventually guessed, though, and proceeded to confront him.  After they got the punching section of the argument over with, Jounouchi demanded to know why the hell Honda was still risking his life so stupidly.  Honda replied by asking why the hell Jounouchi had continued working to enter the Battle City finals even after the casualties started piling up left and right.

Jounouchi sputtered for a few moments before falling silent.  Soon after he changed the subject, and Honda assumed that the conversation was dropped.

The next morning, though, Jounouchi went to a nearby Shinto temple and bought him a good luck charm.  The gesture was so strange that Honda had no choice but to wear it while he was riding.  Jounouchi never said anything else on the matter.

After all, they both liked to push their limits recklessly.  That was one of the ways and reasons that they had become friends.  It was just that Honda preferred that, if he were going to risk his life, it be with something more tangible than magic and pieces of cheap cardboard.  

He hadn't really raced for the money in a long time.  He raced for the speed.

Near the outskirts of Domino City, there was a strip of beach that was non-public.  It belonged to the various industries that stored their products in the warehouse district nearby.  The road along there was incredibly curved and dangerous -- the speed limit was thirty-five.

When Honda first started driving there, he took the turns at thirty.  One day, when he was in a bad mood, he took them at forty.  Soon he began driving at forty-five, then fifty, then sixty-five.  He stayed at sixty-seven for a long time, because he couldn't turn any sharper without scraping his shoe along the blacktop.

One day he was just in front of the third curve when a rock-hauler came around the corner, hugging too close to the middle of the road.  Neither of them had enough time to slow down.

If Honda had hit his breaks, the motorcycle would have flipped.  If he'd jerked to the side and tried to skid to a break that way, he would have slammed straight into the guardrail.  If he'd gone forward instead of taking the turn, he still would have hit the rail and probably would have flown over it as well.

Honda Hiroto used to race motorcycles.


End file.
